


The Paths of the World

by TheBeastofBurton



Series: Songs of the Cobblestones [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, Behind the Scenes, Companion Piece, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 08:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4298199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBeastofBurton/pseuds/TheBeastofBurton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The weird, winding way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Paths of the World

**The Paths of This World**

            As dark and foreign feeling as Haven could get, Elisabeth never felt out of place in the tavern.  There were enough people with them now that she could pretend, for a few hours, that she was just a soldier.  Nothing more than another cold, tired bastard in need of a warm fire and a stiff drink.

            It didn't hurt that _she_ was there all the time, either.

            Elisabeth smiled to herself and leaned back against the slatted wall, watching the raucous card game brewing across the room.  Some Ferelden nonsense she didn't recognize, but Sera seemed to be passionately arguing the merits of a mixed-suit straight with a hulk of a hostler.  Subtle, she was not, but the crowd appeared spirited by her rhetoric.  Or agitated.  It was difficult to tell through the pleasant whiskey haze settling down over Elisabeth’s head.

            She closed her eyes and took another swallow of the admittedly superb liquor, reminding herself to toss Threnn an extra few quid for managing to find a bottle of it all the way out here.  It warmed her from the inside out, numbed the razor grip of duty and circumstance that had strung itself about her chest from that wretched day at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

            She sighed, the sweetness of it still thick on her tongue as she opened her eyes.  The crowd remained around the card table, but they players had changed.

            "Think I didn't see you over here, all-touched Lady Herald?"  Sera dropped into the seat next to her with a lazy grin.  "Gonna follow through on all that undressing your eyes were up to?"

             Elisabeth chuckled, took a long, deliberate look up and down Sera's body.  "I wouldn't dream of it before the third date, ser.  I am a lady, after all."

            "Better get to asking for a first one, then, you poncey git," Sera shot back with a wink.  "Never know where it might get you."  Maker, was it ever tempting.  She was just Elisabeth's type, all whipcord and wicked humor, beer on her breath and the challenge of it bright in her eyes, leaning closer with an easy smirk twisting up the side of her--

            "Oh, piss," she said suddenly, whipping her attention back to the rowdy card game.  "Be right back; that daft bastard's playing wrong again.  Face swords aren't frigging low."

            Sera jumped up and hurried back across the room, leaving Elisabeth to laugh to herself.  It was a fun game, moving around each other in a dance of almost-not-quite-soon.  She downed the end of her glass and resolved herself once again. 

***

            How soon was soon enough, Sera wondered for the hundredth time as she watched Elisabeth leave the loose circle of a camp they’d set up.  She seemed steadier than she had in a few days, finally lost that shake in her knees that’d stuck around since they hauled her up out of the snow, but something was still off.  Like she still might be a little wonky in the head.

            Sera followed her, watched the way she moved through the other half-camps that trailed up the hillside.  Everyone who knew her from a distance was being weird, like if she stopped to talk to them they might piss themselves without knowing if it were for joy or fear.  She didn’t stop, though.  Not even when the string of camps ended.  Not until she hit a copse of trees a ways away, and even then it was a kind of jerky, half-thought-out sort of stop where she ended up leaning hard against one of the trees and staring out at the snow with blank eyes.

            Yeah.  Definitely still wonky.

            What was Sera to do about it, though?  This whole ‘give her space’ thing was as dull as it was obviously not working.  Cassandra had said more than once that she couldn’t explain to them all what’d happened until she understood it herself, but it seemed to Sera that that might never happen.  It was awful and frigging terrifying and loads of people were dead and Elisabeth _wasn’t_.  That wasn’t something you just got over, even if you were the closest thing to Andraste in…well, ever.

            Frig it all, Sera thought, slinging her bow off her shoulder and pulling out an arrow.  Elisabeth was more than just their stupid Herald and Sera was done treating her like she was a dead thing in a Chantry tabernacle.

            It was one of her favorite trick shots; three-quarter draw, sunk right in the space between Elisabeth fingers.  Just hard enough to stick the wood and the fletching would look like a moustache when she turned to see what’d happened.  It went perfectly, and the girly little yelp that Elisabeth let out made it even better.

            “Wotcher, Tadwinks!” Sera called out cheerfully, grinning and elbowing Elisabeth in the side as she walked up to her.  “Is there a naked girl out there?  No one should be staring that hard at anything that isn’t a naked girl.”

            Elisabeth made a sound in the back of her throat, like a confused laugh she’d managed to choke on.  She looked frantically between Sera and the arrow still stuck between fingers in their death-grip on the dead tree.  “Why…how did you _do that_?” she squeaked.

            “Easy.”  Sera motioned down at the bow still in her hand.  “Pull back on that string and then let go.  It’s like magic, but less stupid.”

            That got a proper laugh out of her, even if it did sound a little winded.  For a second she even started to look right again, pretty little spark in her eye, cheeky little grin turning up the side of her mouth.

            “Think you could show me how to do that?”

***

            “Right, you daft tit.  Let’s try it again.”

            Elisabeth tried very hard not to smirk as Sera shoved at her shoulder before manhandling her back into a proper stance.  “For someone as clever as you are, you’re really shite at learning.  Didn’t take me half this time.”

            “What can I say?  Underachieving is something of a specialty.”  Sera scoffed behind her, sliding her hands down to Elisabeth’s hips to square her body with the target.

            “Prat.  Now show me a draw.”  Elisabeth nocked an arrow and pulled back.  “ _Proper_ draw.  Hand to your ear.”  Sera circled around to the side and nodded with curt approval.  “Fire.”

            Elisabeth narrowed her eyes and let the string roll off her fingertips, grinning when the arrow punched through the outer rim of the parchment circle pinned to the hay bale.  “Ha!  I don’t know what you’re on about; I think I’m getting rather good at this.”

            “Like piss you are,” Sera retorted incredulously.  “S’only the third time you’ve even nicked the bale.”  Elisabeth shrugged, nocked another arrow with an easy smile tossed in Sera’s direction.  “Confidence is half the battle, I’m told.  I bet I’ll even hit the center this time.”

            Sera folded her arms over her chest with a snort.  “Three sovereigns says you don’t even hit the parchment.”

            “Three?  You’re confidence in me is astounding.”  Elisabeth pulled back her arm and held the draw as she aimed.  “Make it five.  Or you could finally go on that date with me, if you’d rather save your coin.”

            “Well I _was_ saving that one for something you might actually manage, but that’s your loss.”  Elisabeth couldn’t spare a look over at Sera’s face, but she could hear the sly smile around the edge of the words.  “Let’s see it, lover girl.”

            Elisabeth dropped the charade entirely, straightening her spine and tightening back into full draw as she released.  The arrow sailed cleanly into the center of the target.

            “ _What_?” Sera yelped, glancing between Elisabeth and the target with her jaw all but flapping in the breeze.

            Elisabeth handed Sera the bow with a smug grin.  “Friday evening, then?”  She added a touch more swing to her step than was necessary as she walked away, knowing the eyes she felt were her answer.

***

            Keep it light, Sera reminded herself, bouncing up on the balls of her feet as she paced.  Light and east and not a big deal at all, because it wasn’t.  Either part.  She’d dated all sorts of girls and asked all sorts for help.  Alright, maybe there were more girls than there was help.  But combining the two just saved time, right?  

            “Alright there?” she heard and amused voice ask as she hit the wall.

            “Hey, you,” she responded brightly as she whipped around.  Brightly and breathless.  Piss.  “Come buy me a drink, yeah?  I’ve an Inquisitor favor to ask.”

            “Shouldn’t you be buying?” Elisabeth asked with a little smirk, waving over one of the bar lasses that kept the beer flowing day and night in this place.  She grabbed two mugs off the tray and overpaid. 

            “You’re the one who picked company over coin,” Sera shot back with a tight grin as she dropped down onto an empty bench. 

            “Let’s hear it, then,” Elisabeth prodded as she took a sip.

            “Jump right in, huh?  I like that.”  Sera took a too-big swallow of her own before pressing on.  “S’a Red Jenny thing, innit.  Noble stiffs arguing over land in Verchiel, little people caught in the middle.  You go to your big table and send some people to walk through the town, scare the breeches of the arseholes and get a shiny stash for your trouble.  Easy, right?”

            “A little too easy, if I’m being honest,” Elisabeth replied with a frown.  “How reliable is this information?  Did you get it from another Jenny?”

            “Nah, just normal angry people tired of being in the middle.”  Sera began to pick at a crack in the handle of her mug.  “Don’t usually hear things this far away, but having a friend like you’s like getting really big ears.  I mean bigger ears, I guess.  Shut it.”  She glared when Elisabeth chuckled, but the sound of it was too nice to get properly annoyed.

            “Do I get to know who’s asking for this?”

            “I’m asking.”  Sera took another long swallow and stared at the table.  “When big people fight, little people die.  Decent living to be made if you’re decent enough to notice.”

            “I’ll have Cullen look into it first thing, then,” Elisabeth supplied with a nod and a little smile and Sera was utterly frigging _vindicated._   Good people underneath that rubbish family name, just like she thought.  Good, fit people with pretty eyes who made her chest to a weird flopping thing whenever she pulled a grin and–

            Piss, she was _invested_ in this now, wasn’t she?  In her.  This was going to be trouble.  Sera could feel it.

***

            Elisabeth had known this trip was going to be trouble from the moment they’d found the meet point.  Not that it had done her a whit of good in the end.

            She took another small sip of her drink and watched Sera watch the fire.

            “You should go to her,” Dorian prompted from his spot at the bar as he picked through a bowl of stew with a vague look of disgust.  “Sulking in the shadows is very unbecoming for a woman of your stature.”

            “I’m not sulking,” Elisabeth protested too sharply, wincing at the sound of her own voice and the knowing look Dorian gave her.  “I just don’t…she said she didn’t want to talk to anyone.”

            “I don’t believe that you’ve ever qualified as just ‘anyone’ with that little imp.”  He took a cautious spoonful up and let it run back into the bowl.  “Is all Ferelden food this grey or are we simply partaking of a Crestwood specialty?”

            Elisabeth rolled her eyes and squared her shoulders, leaving Dorian to his meal.  Sera didn’t look up when she sat down beside her.

            “Do you want a beer?” Elisabeth asked quietly.  Sera didn’t respond for a long time.

            “Drinking’s for good stuff,” she said eventually, voice flat and rough.  “When you’re home and happy.  Not when things are cocked up in the arse end of nowhere.”  The rain had washed away most of the blood as they walked back to the town, but Elisabeth could still see patches of it dried on Sera’s clothes, dull and dark as rust in the firelight.

            Elisabeth had no idea what to say, or do.  She took another sip and stared into the fire as if it might give her an answer.

            “That smells weird.  What is it?”  The question startled Elisabeth, caused her to slosh a little of it on the floor.  Sera snorted at the display.

            “It’s tea, from Llomerryn,” Elisabeth replied, holding the cup over for inspection.  “My gran was Rivani, she used to bring this sort for us every time she visited.”  Sera eyed it suspiciously, glancing over at Elisabeth before taking the mug.

            “Got some shite sappy story to go along with it?”

            “Nah,” Elisabeth replied with a small grin as Sera took a cautious sip.  “She was a bit of a bitch, really, but she had good taste.”  Sera almost laughed, a short, startled noise muffled into the mug.  She was quiet again after that, staring back into the fire and drinking Elisabeth’s tea.

            “Thank you,” she said haltingly after several minutes of it.

            “Any time,” Elisabeth replied, the weight between them somehow less and more all at once.

***

            “I mean it, Ginger!” Sera called down the stairs.  “Any time, any place.  You just wait ‘til this ruddy cast comes off!”  Harding laughed and waved good-naturedly as she reached the ground floor and headed for the exit, leaving Sera bored and cooped up alone in her room again.  She glared down at the bulky wad of plaster wrapped around her wrist, flopping back against the window as she sat.  What was the point of magic if it didn’t fix what went wrong in your fiddly bits?

            And if she heard that ‘archers aren’t meant to be melee fighting’ speech from the healer one more time, she was going to _stab someone_.  What the piss was she supposed to do when a giant wonky Templar was charging at her like a bronto with water sickness?  It didn’t even hurt that much anymore, but as soon as the bastard starting throwing around words like ‘irreversible damage to the bone’ and ‘never be able to hold a bow again’ and Elisabeth was frigging set on leaving Sera behind.  Whatever.  The Western Approach sounded dusty and weird, anyways.

            Andraste, this was the _worst_.  Healing apparently meant being still, and being still meant not being allowed to have any fun whatsoever.  Bull kept her from drinking too much, Harding kept her from getting too far from the tavern, Cassandra kept looking at her like a disapproving school master every time she even got _close_ to sneaking into the armory.  They were working together, she just _knew it_ , and she was going find out what was going on if it was the last thing she ever–

            A bustle broke out in the bailey below, distracting her from the brewing plan.  She shouldered open the window and edged out on the roof to watch.

            “ _What_ did you just say?” she saw Cassandra ask the doubled-over runner, already pulled up to that ‘punch a bear in the face’ posture that meant nothing good was about to happen.

            “Adamant,” the runner wheezed.  “Siege started.  Magister has the archdemon from Haven.”  Sera’s gut went cold at the word.  She still had nightmares about the dragon, awful twisty dreams where she could smell Denerim burning again.  But the runner wasn’t done.

            “Fade rift.  _Huge_ fade rift.  Inquisitor fell–”

            “ _Into the Fade_?” Cassandra finished for him in a terrified snarl.  “She’s _physically_ in the Fade?”

            “ ** _What_**?” Sera shouted, almost stumbling off the roof as the horror splintered down the bones of her legs.

***

            Elisabeth’s head cracked back against the wood before she could ask again.

            “What did I do?” she managed to choke out around the iron grip at her collar.  “Sera, wait, your wrist.  You’re going to–”

            “Shut it and listen,” Sera snapped, pushing Elisabeth harder against the door.  “Never.  Again.  Hear me?  You trapped in that…that _place_.  Frigging not-real nightmares.  I can’t think about that shite!”

            “If it’s any consolation it was rather uncomfortable to have to live through, as well,” Elisabeth tried to joke, holding up her hands defensively when Sera’s anger visibly grew.

            “You think this is frigging _funny_?”

            “No, no of course not,” Elisabeth assured, laying what she hoped was a reassuring hand on the back of Sera’s arm.  “I just don’t understand why you’re so upset.  Convoluted, other-worldly danger seems to happen every other Tuesday to us.  Is it because you weren’t there?”

            “No,” Sera replied shortly, frowning as she tried to put words to her thoughts.  “Only decent part about it is that I was on the other side of the pissing world.  It’s not supposed to be real, this.  The Fade, the Maker, what happens when you die.  It’s weird and confusing and _not real_ and I don’t want to think about it but you were _in it_.  It could’ve, you could’ve…”  She broke off in a growl, frustrated.

            “All I want to do is think about you and now you’re tied up in all this stupid.  Ruddy cocking magister god monster ruining every sodding thing he–”

            “Sera,” Elisabeth interrupted, biting back a stupidly enamored smile that had been building for months.  “What did you mean by that?  The thinking about me bit, not the swearing at the Coryphyeus.”

            “What do you think I meant, you daft tit?”  Sera’s rage quit abruptly, her face sinking into a wary sort of anticipation.  “Been talking for ages, we have.  I’m tired of it, yeah?  What’s the point of being frigging careful when I can’t even tell what’s real anymore?”

            The challenge of it hung in the air between them.  Show me you’re still real.  Show me this is real.

            Elisabeth ducked her head down and lurched forward, crashing into Sera’s mouth with the muddy urgency that had been churning in her since Redcliffe.  It was the same kiss through a mirror, with Sera jerking stiff in surprise and bunching her hands in the fabric over Elisabeth’s shoulders.  But she was faster than Elisabeth had been in her place, rocking up on the balls of her feet, throwing her whole weight into the motion until all Elisabeth could process was the warmth of her body and the twist of her tongue.

***

            “How did that happen?” Elisabeth asked in that slow, dreamy voice that meant Sera’d done a particularly bang-up job.

            “Same way it always happens, luv,” she sighed happily, flopping back against the too-stuffed pillows and staring up at the ornate ceiling.  “A little snog, a little roll-around, and a lot of–”

            “No, no, I meant how did I end up the wrong way ‘round?”  Elisabeth clarified, picking up her head with a sleepy grin.  She looked hilarious, actually; half-on-half-off the bed, hair sticking up at every angle, scratched and bruised and so obviously _shagged out_.  Sera had to laugh at it all.

            “You’re too kind,” Elisabeth snarked, flopping over on her stomach before crawling back to facing the right way.  “I’m knackered.  Fancy a kip?”

            “No way.  ‘Every flat surface,’ you said.”  Sera was exhausted herself, but not enough to risk stopping.  The whole stupid night’d been weird and bad until they were alone again, and thoughts of it still felt stabby and wrong under her skin.  Time leftover to breathe meant time to notice the stupidly fancy room, how it was too clean, how the bed too soft.  Sodding Orlais.  Why couldn’t they be back at Skyhold and away from this?

            She missed the signs of movement next to her and yelped in surprise when it lurched into action around her.  With a clumsy flip she up on her knees, looking down, and Orlais was the last thing on her mind.

            There was just _her_ , just the glint of her eyes and the twist of her grin and the feel of salt and grit drying on her skin.  Just the solid strength of her shoulders, the smell of sex and too much wine, the rise and fall of her chest under Sera’s hands.  No room for doubt or stupid or anything else.  Just Bethy.

            “Rain cheque?” she asked, running her rough, warm, not-noble hands up Sera’s back.  “Plenty of places to get up to no good in at home.”  Home.  It was a weird idea for her, even after all these months.  But she felt things for the place, warm, comfy thoughts when she remembered her room in the tavern, her view from the roof.

            “You’re on, you boring prat.”  She tweaked at a bruise on Elisabeth’s hip before lying down, pulling the not-quite-so-clean-anymore blanket over top of the both of them.  “I’ll show you ‘rain cheque.’  Because lady parts, or something.”  Elisabeth guffawed and leaned up on an elbow to blow out the candle by the bed.  Sera grinned to herself in the dark, pouncing back on top for one last snog before she gave up.

            The breathless little noise she got was nearly worth every night she’d ever gone to bed hungry and alone.

***

            She shot out of the darkness choking and sputtering, gasping for clean air through the smelling salt jammed up under her nose.

            “Bloody pissing _Void_ ,” Sera yelled over the chaos around them, tossing aside the salts and scrambling to pull Elisabeth up from the frigid shallows of the riverbed.  “You’re still here.  Give us a hand, yeah?”  Elisabeth helped as best she could, pushing back hard with her legs as she leaned up on Sera’s shoulder.  They somehow managed to make it behind a moss-covered slab of ancient ruin before they crashed back into the ground.

            “Wha’appened?” Elisabeth slurred, blinking furiously through the lingering vertigo.

            “One of them wonky elfy things got the drop on you.”  Sera dragged Elisabeth up to sitting, yanking off Elisabeth’s helmet and swiping at a profusely bleeding cut above her eye.  “Went down like a sack of bricks, you daft tit.  Fingers?”

            Elisabeth narrowed her eyes at the hand held up in front of them.  “Four?” she ventured cautiously as the world finally stopped spinning.  Sera nodded sharply, pleased.

            “That’s my girl.  Let’s get you on your feet.”  Elisabeth nodded, lurching back to her feet with a great deal of help.  Sera took one last swipe at the cut before jamming the helmet back on Elisabeth’s head.  “We’re almost to the temple.  It would be really stupid of you to die now, got it?”

            “Got it.”

            Sera pulled a glass phial off her belt and pressed it into Elisabeth’s hand.  “Three steps and smash it on the ground.  Next bastard who touches you’ll go up like a wicker cabinet.”

            Elisabeth barely felt the familiar punch to her shoulder before Sera bolted back into the thick of the fighting.  She took a deep breath, and another, and another before jerking herself forward into the fray, through sparks and fire and blood enough to stain the river red.  Her arms burned with fatigue as she buried her knife in the neck of a passing Templar, twisting it out into a stumble as the world kilted violently under her feet.  The death rattle drew the attention of the abomination’s company; a pair of archers and a gnarled swordsman.

            She watched them draw in slow motion, unable to move against the treachery of her own body.  Just as the first archer was about to release, his head snapped back and he collapsed in a heap upon the forest floor.  A single arrow was lanced through his head, the tip of it visible out the back of his leather helmet.  Elisabeth knew the fletching on it, goose feathers stained embrium orange.  She stared at it, and the world began to steady.  The last two continued to advance, and she knew what to do.

            Three steps, she repeated to herself.  One, two, _three._

            The glass shattered beneath her heel and she was swallowed by the roar.

***

            The breath was forced out of her lungs by the next push, and everything but the wall against her back became _her_.  The smell of her, the harshness of her breath, heat and movement and muscle.  Andraste’s frigging _tits_ , this was so much better than fighting.

            “Say it again,” she dared in a stupid, breathless half-whimper as Elisabeth changed the angle of her hand, making everything go wonky behind Sera’s eyes.  Elisabeth laughed, if it could be called that, a rough gasp of a noise barely heard over the roaring blood and rasping cloth.

            “I _love you_ , you wonderful, ridiculous woman,” she panted.  Words were supposed to be stupid, hollow, lies people used to make what the actually _did_ look less horrible but Sera felt those three right in her chest.  Right in the center of it, under her ribs, hot and shiny and sparking out everywhere and _Andraste_ –

            She twisted her head enough to bite down on Elisabeth’s shoulder and _howled_ as everything went stiff and blinding white.  Elisabeth made a weak sort of groan, jerking up into Sera’s body before leaning heavily against her.  “ _Piss_ ,” she whispered hoarsely, and Sera was helpless but to laugh.

            Elisabeth laughed, too; shifting until she was leaning on her arms instead of pinning Sera to the wall before kissing her.  Slow and soft and not at all like she’d just frigged Sera senseless against a wall in the middle of a row.

            “Better?” she asked.

            “Yeah,” Sera affirmed, bumping her fist against Elisabeth’s shoulder affectionately.  “But don’t go getting prickish about it, right?  Shagging isn’t usually the fix.”  Elisabeth gave her a very skeptical look.  “Alright, maybe it usually is, but it isn’t _always_.”

            “This, I know, darling,” Elisabeth answered solemnly, but she was really shite at pretending that she was serious about it, so of course Sera had to punch her.  Elisabeth just grinned that cheeky grin and started trying to settle Sera’s shirt less awkwardly about her shoulders.  

She was careful about it, leaving the collar gapped open like Sera liked even though there was an obvious bruise starting to purple right over her collar bone.  Like she was more concerned that Sera was comfortable than everyone not knowing that they were making like rabbits in every dark corner of Skyhold.  It was weird.  Nice weird.  Made that feeling in her chest come back even shinier.

            “What happens now?” she asked, trying to sound like she didn’t really care what the answer was even when the uncertainty of it all felt crawly in her arms.

            “Oh, I don’t know,” Elisabeth replied airily.  “Marriage?”

            Sera’s heart dropped to the pit of her frigging stomach.  What in the _bloody Void_ was she on about?  She’d never been so stupidly terrified in her entire life and…and Elisabeth’s shoulders were shaking with how hard she was trying to hold back her laughter.

            “You frigging _prat_ ,” Sera seethed, pushing off from the wall and tackling Elisabeth back onto the bench as hard as her wobbly legs would allow her.

***

            Elisabeth fell back laughing so hard she could barely breathe.  The shingles were still a bit slick in the shadowed parts of the roof, and she skidded alarmingly close to the edge.  Just as she was about to yelp at the rising vertigo, a hand grabbed her by the back of the collar and righted her with an unceremonious yank.

            “Should’ve let you fall,” Sera grumbled, take another agitated swipe at the blue powder staining her face in patches.  Just the sight of it sent Elisabeth into another fit.

            “It’ll come off, you sneak,” she managed to choke out.  Sera glared at her, hard.

            “Yuck it up, _Inquisitor_.  See how much you’re laughing when every keep in on the ruddy continent is running your underpants up the flagpole.”

            “Damn, is that where they’ve all gone?”  Sera smiled smugly.  “You’ve never really ascribed to the school of equitable response, have you?”

            “Ponce.  You’re the one who set a dye pack in your own closet.”

            “You said you wanted a surprise,” Elisabeth grinned, licking her thumb and attempting to scrub away a particularly bright streak of pigment stained across Sera’s cheekbone.  “‘Everything’s gone all dull without the world ending’, you said.”  Sera growled audibly and swatted Elisabeth’s hand away before confusingly scooting over until they were pressed up against each other.

            “Don’t get any ideas,” she said, pulling Elisabeth’s arm around her shoulders.  “It’s just frigging freezing out here.”  It was unseasonable cold, even for Skyhold.  The winter had been long and wore hard upon the trade routes to the keep, and even the start of the thaw had yet to impact the sleepy stillness of life in surplus.  There was food enough to be full, fuel enough to be warm, and a distance from the machinations of the outside world that Elisabeth found she could easily become accustomed to.

            She moved her hand absently as she watched the town putter below them, drawing lazy lines up and down Sera’s arm.

            “Making me sleepy,” Sera mumbled, turning her head into Elisabeth’s shoulder.  “S’cheating.  Still cross with you.”

            “However could I keep your interest by playing fair, sweetheart?”  Elisabeth risked pushing her luck further, catching hold of Sera’s hand and pressing a kiss to the ring that she’d not taken off since that day after the end of all things.

            “Honey tongue,” Sera accused, picking at a loose thread in Elisabeth’s shirt rather than pulling back in on herself.  “Keep that up and I might just let you wash this rubbish off for me.”

            “I’d have to go ‘round Josephine’s office first for some trade nonsense, but sign me up.”  She sat up straight, stretching her arms out above her head before getting to her feet.  “You could go up and get some water on the fire.”  A thought occurred to her as she help pull Sera up.  “Hold on.”

            She fished a hastily made key from her belt and offered it up with a touch of chagrin.  “I may have rigged the linen chest, as well.”  Sera scowled at her and reached up to cuff her across the top of the head before ducking back in through the window.

            Elisabeth laughed to herself, taking one last breath of cold air before returning to the dull familiarity of her duty.  It tasted of ice, but the smell of greenery was on the wind.  Spring was inescapable, even here at the top of world.

            “Oi!  Quit staring and get moving, prat.  Your bootlaces are next.”

            But perhaps the symbolism of a world still there to change could wait for another day.

***

            Spring came and went, and more of them after that, until one muggy morning Sera found herself back where it all started.  Stuck up in a shadowy corner of a poncey Orlesian shop with an aching bow arm, waiting.

            Alright, so it was a little different than it'd been before.  She had more scars, more stories.  She was a damn sight less hungry and more bards than that creepy Mayden were singing songs about the things she’d done.  But a lot of it was the same.  Especially the part where Elisabeth was taking her bloody time getting there.

            Months, it'd been now.  _Months_ since she'd seen her.  All because stupid Varric was too busy with some rubbish in Kirkwall and stupid Leliana had wandered off into the sunset with her Warden.  Playing spymaster sounded like a grand load of fun, and for the first week or so she'd been right.  But now she'd sunk a fortnight and Andraste only knew how many leads into this stupid sting that no one'd bothered to show up for and she hadn’t been able to sleep properly since she left Skyhold.  She’d gone ruddy _soft_ , and it was all Elisabeth’s fault.

            "Are you sure this is the right shipment?" she heard some git ask much too loudly in the alleyway below.  His mates shushed him up quick.  About bloody time they showed.

            "Yes, you idiot," a thick, snooty sounding Orlesian voice answered.  "All of it is going to Skyhold." 

            "And all we have to do is get some of the rashvine in there?"

            "Yes," the leader hissed.  She could hear the pride in his voice, the deep breath in before he gave the goods away in broad frigging daylight.  What a tit.  "The wine will break it down to poison and the entire army of the Inquisition will be--"

            "What's going on here?"

            Piss, it was a guard.  A frigging idiot guard.  The daft bandits all went stiff as boards and the poncey one looked at the guard for a long, telling second.  Sera cocked back her arm and sighted the back of his stupid head.

            “Just checking on the quality of our goods, guardswoman,” he offered in a greasy, empty play for time.  His right hand was fidgeting toward something couched up in the small of his back.  Sera waited until she saw the light glinting on the steel before she fired.  The other two tits were so thrown off enough by the implosion of their ringleader’s squishy head that the guard knifed them up before the body hit the cobblestones.  She was almost as surprised as they were when Sera nailed her to the wall by the pauldron.

            “Wait,” she protested, voice muffled by the ridiculous helmet-mask that guardsmen wore.  Guardsmen who were all trained in the sword, and who knew how to move about in heavy armor.  But as Sera made the last jump down she saw the imposter’s knife and _knew it_.  Knew the weight of it in her hand, the gritty feel of blood and sweat that’d soaked so far into the grip.  She took three big steps, buried the blade in the wood beside the not-guard’s head, ripped off the helmet and kissed her so hard that their teeth knocked together.

            “You _unbelievable_ prat,” she snarled before smacking Elisabeth square across the jaw.  “Do you know how many hours I’ve been waiting up there?  Why the piss are you here a week early in this getup?  We had a plan!”

            “Josephine got tipped that they were expecting me–” she broke off into a lovely little growling noise in the back of her throat when Sera kissed her again, unable to figure out if she were more angry or stupidly happy to see her again.  “Went ahead without the caravan.  Paid off though, didn’t it.”

            It wasn’t even a question, with that cocky smirk.  Sera couldn’t decide between hitting her again or tearing her out of that armor in the middle of the frigging market.

            “Maker, but I’ve missed you,” Elisabeth admitted softly, bringing up her gauntleted hand to Sera’s face as gently as she could manage.  The metal was warm from being in the sun, and Sera felt so much that she was worried she might cry.  So she punched her at a weak joist in the armor and hid her face against Elisabeth’s neck.  She could feel the salt of it on her lips, smell the dirt of hard riding in her hair, and for the first time in months she felt like she was _home_.

            “Missed you, too,” she mumbled, curling herself into the weight of the arm that wrapped around her shoulders. 

            “Even if you’re a tit.”


End file.
